Of course
the trend with remakes of old-school science fiction is to leave well enough
alone and spend most of the budget upping the ante on the special effects, so
it's with a little bit of relief that I say Scott Derrickson's remake of The
Day the Earth Stood Still actually has half a brain in its head. Sure the story's essentially the same and
the special effects budget has obviously been spent, but the tone here is also
a more menacing one than Robert Wise's 1951 film, which points to a certain
intelligence to which we're not typically accustomed in these kinds of
projects.

It only
makes sense. The undercurrent of the
original was humankind's potential for destroying itself with weapons of mass
destruction, a prospect viscerally frightening enough on its own to warrant an
understated approach. This one's a bit
different in its thematic conceit. Humankind's doomed because of its actions, but it's going to take Earth,
one of the few planets, according to the extraterrestrial visitor here, in the
cosmos capable of sustaining life, with it. In the grander scheme of things, then, we don't mean too much at all to
the unsympathetic visitor.

In 1928 in
India, a mountain climber (Keanu Reeves) happens upon a large glowing sphere,
which knocks him unconscious, awakening to nothing on the side of the mountain. In the present day, Dr. Helen
Benson, an astrobiologist at Princeton University, teaches classes and raises
her stepson Jacob (Jaden Smith) on her own. Preparing dinner this night, she receives an anonymous phone
call. Some people are on their way to pick her up. The matter is unknown, but she'll
be prepped en route. She's whisked away
to an Army facility with a collection of other scientists, where her old
colleague Michael Granier (Jon Hamm) fills her in.

There's an
object on a collision course with Manhattan ("Why don't we shoot down with
a missile," one scientist proposes, and one almost expects the response to
be, "Because that's been done too many times before."). Expecting catastrophe, the scientists arrive
in Central Park to witness the spherical object, which has slowed down upon
entering the atmosphere, opening to reveal a strange being. The otherworldly creature is shot
(natch),
defended momentarily by a giant robot from the ship, rushed to a military
facility for treatment, and reveals itself to be a humanoid with a command of
the English language named Klaatu (Reeves).

Why is
Klaatu here? What are his intentions? These are the questions Benson
and her colleagues want answered, but of course, the government, represented by
Secretary of Defense Regina Jackson (Kathy Bates), already have their
assumptions. Clearly, Klaatu is a
potential hostile, a representative from an advanced civilization, and Jackson
reminds them all of the lessons in history when an advanced civilization
contacts a simple one. The giant robot
still stands sentinel in Central Park, and Klaatu isn't forthcoming with his
motivation, requesting to speak in front of the UN so all leaders of the world
can hear what he has to say.

The debate
is unfortunately short-lived, and soon Benson helps Klaatu escape and ends up
taking him around to other spheres that have landed around the world and
determine what's to be done with those pesky humans. There's a lot of potential here to develop this initial conflict
between what each group sees as good for humanity, but David Scarpa's script
instead lets these early scenes serve as a mysterious, threatening buildup. It's less intellectually
involving, but it gets the job done for what's to follow. What does follow are cryptic remarks
(There's a play on semantics with the phrase, "I'm a friend to the
Earth") and behavior from Klaatu, while the military plays around with
their new robotic friend.

At times,
it feels like there are two different movies here. There's the creepy speculation about Klaatu and the more
special-effects oriented action with the robot (drone fighters attack it, giant
walls are positioned around it, and an entire military base falls victim to its
secondary, microscopic form). The
material with Klaatu accomplishes what it must, and surprisingly it works in
large part because of Keanu Reeves' performance. Completely emotionless, with a face that gives away absolutely nothing
(Nothing too farfetched for Reeves, but it works this time around.), Reeves'
Klaatu is a blank slate for us to fill in the gaps until his plan becomes
clear.

The stuff
with the robot, on the other hand, is clearly less important to the movie, and Scarpa
seems reassert the point, giving us some fairly anticlimactic action sequences
throughout. Even the large-scale
destruction in the final act, which follows the rule in a movie about potential
global destruction that even though the Earth itself is saved you'd better be
sure to get some massive mayhem in, isn't too impressive. Also lacking is the development of Klaatu's
change of perception of humanity, but, like the original, it certain preaches
its final point nonetheless.

It
might sound as though I'm not too enthused about The Day the Earth Stood
Still, and that's right. While it's
definitely lacking in certain, important areas of development, the overall
atmosphere of dreadful foreboding compensates enough. The film works for what it is, and I can't necessarily fault the
film too much because of it.